


For auld lang syne

by jarofactonbell



Category: Spider-Man: Into the Spider-Verse (2018)
Genre: Gen, M/M, Uncle Aaron Lives, i'm sad about the lack of gankemiles, so i will give you this, trauma from loss is real and i'm here to hurt you
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-04-08
Updated: 2019-04-08
Packaged: 2020-01-06 14:25:10
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 6,090
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/18390209
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/jarofactonbell/pseuds/jarofactonbell
Summary: In a different universe somewhere, Uncle Aaron lives.Miles just didn't think he would: a. be sucked into that universe and be forced to revisit his regrets and living ghost and b. for it to happen over his Spider-y sparks and a robotic homework assignment and c. to run into Peter B. Parker again





	For auld lang syne

**Author's Note:**

> thank you rin for opening my fifth eye and exposing me to this genius. i hope you're happy. i also hope i wrote enough gankemiles to tide you over until i crank out a new one
> 
> in the voice of someone much wiser and older: it all started because of a tweet

Here they both were, trying to amend the circuits fizzing in Ganke’s dodgy little robotic assignment, which, Miles disapproved. It might have something to do with his encounters with the Science Side, lovely as they had been, and now he is immediately suspicious of any machinery that is human-controlled. Next to tentacles, lab coats, fast moving buses and really imposing men in suits screaming loudly at him.

He shudders, and shakes himself awake from his meandering thoughts that really chose the Trauma Lane today out of all day. His whole body spasm disrupted Ganke from his tinkering for a split second, earbud falling from its dangling spot, and Miles reaches out, brain too fried to consider what the _implications_ are of such a daring act, and fixes it back up, fingertips brushing against the shell of Ganke’s ear all the while.

It’s a new day, he thinks it might be two in the morning. He’s been awake more than 24 hours. He’s allowed to be a little bit feral and stupid given that nonstop and hectic day he just had, on top of crime fighting.

Ganke’s eyes don’t stay on him for too long, though he does shift a little so that they’re closer, knees bumping.

Miles is suddenly very awake. And buzzing with adrenaline. He can feel the undercurrent of electricity humming under his skin and can only lament _Oh what_ **_now_ **as sparks burst forth from under his clothes and onto the little funky robot, cutting off the bulb circuits from around them and bouncing around, turning off lights.

“Why does this always happen,” he asks, very resentful the Spider Overlord gave him this power and didn’t warn him of the responsibility of Suppressing Your Emotions. He’s fifteen. He is a walking nervous system. Everything gets on his nerves. He’s rooming with someone who he considers of the highest calibre and who he thinks is neat and he would willingly stay up to fix his robot for even though he has low-grade trauma from his hero-ing experiences.

There are _implications_ for that too but that’s not important right now.

Ganke doesn’t throw a fit. Ganke is too tired, and probably thinks it’s his robot’s fault. 

Miles feels distinctly like an asshole. Really, what does he know about electrical circuits so that he can zap a light back and they can fix this and nap before their 8.30 AM class. 

Probably. He can barely even pass physics. He doesn’t know anything about anything. 

His fingertips touch something and he squeezes on instinct, and a low whirring starts. Somehow it sounds like a requiem for the dying, and Miles has a vague vague recall of something that sounded too similar for this to pinpoint what was it exactly before a portal opens up on his ceiling. 

Ganke now sounds concerned, but Miles can’t hear him over the cyclone that is circling through their dorm and sucking up their assignments. Plus Ganke forewent English altogether whenever he’s fully panicked and just went complete Korean and quantum physics on him.

It would be much cuter if there isn’t a cyclone in their room. Miles can’t have his little Gay Thoughts controlling his brain at times like this.

Okay, okay. Time to plan. He has his suit underneath his pyjamas. He can probably do something - get in, find help, go back. The Spider Squad pulled it off. He can pull it off too. 

Probably.

 Anyways, that’s a thing for Future Miles. Present Miles needs to yeet himself in and figure the rest out later.

He screams at Ganke - “I’ll be right back!”

Ganke screams back at him - “No, don’t just jump in, you idiot!”

 They both didn’t hear each other and the cyclone conveniently plucks him from the floor and into the beyond.

 He didn’t even get to say goodbye. That was very inconsiderate of the Cyclone.

 

Rude Ceiling Cyclone spits him out on the asphalt of a Brooklyn he is both familiar with and isn’t as he skids and takes very bad cartwheels from the fall to steady himself.

“I didn’t even ask to be here!” He screams at the sky, hoping the divine Science Gods will listen to his plight and pluck him back up into his realm. No such miracles befall little poor poor Miles.

 Someone tells him to shut up from his front lawn and tries to hose him down. Miles narrowly avoids that, taking to the sidewalk. Okay, okay. This may not be his Brooklyn, but it’s still Brooklyn. There are similarities and overlaps. He can do this.

He can’t do this. It’s daylight. He’s got only socks on. Where is he. Why can’t he have super strength instead of sparkles power. 

He is in his pyjamas. In the middle of a brightly lit street. It’s not looking great.

He’s trying to orient himself. Where is he? Where is -

 ...Is that aunt May’s home....?

It is. It has the same gate and everything.

He takes off sprinting, and runs smack bang into a swinging door, with a shock of red hair gasping and catching him before he knocks himself out into a week-long concussion.

It is awkward, awkward silence, as Mary Jane Watson pulls him to his feet.

She looks at him, looks at his clothes and his mismatched Spiderman socks. She doesn’t know him, but she has a hand on his arm.

“Are you,” she clears her voice, “a fan of Peter’s?”

He hates himself when his squeak of _You can say that, in a way, yeah,_ pretty much cements the fact that he is a crazed fanboy, out here to spy on the lives of the Parker. He is _not._ He is _lost_ and he hopes that Aunt May can guide him to whoever this universe’s Spider Hero is.

For an awful, awful moment, he realised his mistake.

The possibilities were endless, but he had hopes that he would run into a Spider Person that he knew. Upon crash landing, he knew he wasn’t in Porker’s world nor is he in Noir’s or Peni’s. The world itself isn’t like anything like theirs.

He also didn’t account for it to be Gwen’s - where Peter is dead. He was optimistic, hoping that it was someone else, someone else who could -

It would be such a rude moment to intrude on if this is Gwen’s world. He is a terrible piece of unwanted fat, he doesn’t even deserve rights, he’s the worst of trash, just throw him into landfill please, don’t even bother to recycle -

Peter B. Parker walks out from inside May’s house and immediately grabs him by the scruff of his pyjama top, turns the doorknob, and yanks him inside, swearing all the while as he is dragged to the sitting room and lowered like an unwanted sack of plastic onto a floral-furnished couch.

He can hear Mary Jane chasing after them and asking who he is.

“Just a kid I helped and now he's lost,” he hears faintly.

It's not entirely wrong.

“Okay,” Peter says, one hand on his hip and one trying to dig out his eyes from his sockets from the sheer force of stress rubbing.

Wait. Upon closer inspection, his other hand is on his back. Guess old age is catching up to him, huh.

“Okay,” Peter repeats again, as if that solves anything.

 _"Okay,"_  he grits out, to complete the triad.

“You’ve said that three times now,” Miles notes. “If saying it does help, please keep doing it. If it doesn’t, then you need to breathe it through and sit down with me to plot a way for me to go home. Have a biscuit, Parker.” 

The side eye he gets is almost murderous. _“Did you just McGonagall me?”_

“I must inform you that homicide in any dimension, is mostly illegal and is grounds for legal prosecution to be started against you -”

“Cut the crap, Morales,” Peter plops down on the seat opposite him. “How are you here?”

Explanations didn’t take very long. What took longer was the understanding of how that led to this. 

“Wait. No,” Peter holds up a palm. “Your roommate accidentally made a robot that can _open up the portal to another dimension,_ in _your dorm room?”_

“I kinda contributed to the accidental portal too, Peter -” 

“The matter of energy can be relevant but at some point or another, you will have to power the damned thing, and it would open a portal later rather than sooner,” Peter waves his objections off. “Not everything is your fault, Miles.”

Before he can open his mouth to list that, _nah, a lot of things are_ **_my_ ** _fault,_ Mary Jane nudges the door open with tea and biscuits, setting the tray of food down right in front of them.

“You must be so shocked, to run first thing to Peter,” she coos, voice too understanding. As if lost teenage kids in pyjamas keep turning up at Aunt May's house in search of Peter for help and guidance, which, Decisively Terrible Choice. _Why._

He can't say much because he is right here doing the exact same, but he is a special case. He actually only has Peter and it is tragic that life is That Way, but he's confident that since he doesn't have the responsibilities of school, social life and crime-fighting, that he can get out as fast as he had gotten in.The details are blurry to him, but he'll improvise as they trudge along.

“Ha ha,” he laughs, but very Awkwardly. “I didn't exactly have any other choice to confide in, about my circumstances.”

“It's quite alright, darling, you take as long as you need, get settled in, and we'll do whatever we can for you,” she pats his arm, the warmth of a mother the exact same tone in any universe where mothers are there.

He doesn't realise how much he misses his own mama, but now that he is an entire universe away, the twinge hit him harder than before. There's no telling how long he had been gone from his own world and if it's equivalent to how the time runs here, she would be worried sick. And then she would try to split his face open with a rolling pin first thing when he turns up on their doorstep.

“Thank you, ma'am,” he bows his head. “I won't be much of a burden. I apologise for crashing in like this.”

“It is no problem, at all,” she reassures him. “Peter doesn't have a lot of work now, so you two can take as long as you need. I need to be heading off to my own work however, so anything that I can help with while in the office, do ring me.”

Miles is so going to hug his mum so _hard and long_ when he sees her after this fiasco.

“We'll be right, MJ. Go out there and conquer the corporate world,” Peter rises and walks her to the door, dropping a kiss on her hair.

“It's a nonprofit organisation,” she laughs, and pats his cheeks. Oh that. No more gross stubble. So maybe he did change. 

That's weird. Happy weird, but also a bit of a reality check to Miles. Has _he_ changed? _Much? At all?_

For the most part, he's more settled into who he is and can be. That's all good.

But sometimes, he remembers Aaron. Being on the chase, betting on blind luck to save him. Running from someone who, under the mask, is someone he would trust everything to. 

He doesn't blame Aaron, never once had. But there were too many questions that will never be answered and Jefferson is as in the dark as he is. 

“Kid. Kid. _Kid!”_  

He shakes himself to awareness, getting a full view of Spiderman and his nose hair. Gross. _Why._

He bats Peter away, cringing and collapsing on the couch. “I don't need to see your nose hair in clear resolution! Go _away!”_  

“Teenagers,” Peter rolls his eyes, as if he is a hundred years old and not in his mid thirties. “So dramatic. Come on, we're going to get changed and taking a wander by your school.”

“Why,” he asks, even though he is scrambling to follow Peter to an old closet with presumably clothes that no longer fit him and would now be temporarily loaned to his protege. Like a handing over of an Olympic torch, except that they kinda did that over in his own world with the Spiderman training, but, this is more Peter-led, so Miles will give him that.

“Think,” is all Peter says. “This world is a mirror of yours. What happens in yours should, one would assume, be reflected in mine. We're going to track down your quantum entanglements friend and wring this funky little dimension tearing robot out from his grip.” 

“That sounds violent,” he muses, pulling a jumper over his head. “And as long as I get home within two days max, I don't mind how we'll get there. You'll just have to deal with explanations of why you kidnapped a high school kid, so, not my problem.”

Peter is halfway through with pulling a cap over his hair where he pauses, half turning to Miles. 

“What,” Miles is on edge.

“About that high school bit -”

 

 _“Dios mios,”_ he is...Shocked? Traumatised? Appalled? Doesn't really know how to cope with this knowledge? Really wished he didn't open his big mouth and asked for it?

 _“How do you know where I'm going to university?”_ He wants to say, but currently his mouth is too unhinged and open to say anything useful or coherent.

 Instead he turns to Peter, accusation clear in his eyes.

 “You totally Googled me up over here, didn't you?” 

Peter's spluttering is enough to confirm everything for him.

Pratt. Pratt is _very good._ He would have liked to go to Rhode, but knowing himself, he would've preferred to stay in Brooklyn, to be close to everything he had grown up in.

“Okay, no, don't give me details, where is Ganke,” he holds up a palm.

Ganke is very smart. One of the top performing students at Brooklyn Visions Academy. He must've been aiming for either Cornell or Columbia. All the robotics and physics and quantum mechanics, it can only be one of those.

“Columbia,” Peter doesn't meet his eyes. “The Miles here and him, they're still close. Meeting up whenever they don't have classes. I think the family approves.”

“Of _what?”_ He pinches the jumper Peter is donning. “What are you not telling me -”

A ghost from the depth of his nightmare wanders by, to the side entrance of Pratt. Another version of him, older, taller, wild hair and wild clothes, paint splotches everywhere on his collar, is on a dead sprint towards _him_ and he can't locate the breath inside of him to exhale out the sheer _shock_ from seeing _all of this._

Peter wordlessly reaches for him, but doesn't make contact with his arm. 

Right. Right. This is _not_ his world. Why would Aaron be gone?

He could - he could get out, see for himself, ask Aaron all the questions he never got to ask, try to mend everything that was left in silence - he could, he very well _could._

But he doesn't. He stays, glued to the car seat, eyes straining the pair of uncle and nephew heading off to the direction of Miles’ house, bumping into each other and loudly chattering, eyes holding none of the ghosts he or Aaron had been carrying inside their own eyes.

He's here, so _close,_ but Miles can't make that leap of faith into matters that require too much bravery and heart than the amount that he can harbour inside his lanky teenage frame. He is just - there. A spectator to everything that had transpired, and he will be a spectator to everything that is happening in his life - 

The car revs to life and starts speeding to Manhattan. He is strapped to the seat, shocked and shocked and still very much shocked.

 

They definitely didn’t think it through when they went speeding through New York to the Hudson River, and stopped in the parking lot near the Palisades, an astronomy observatory towering in the forested bluff above their heads.

Miles doesn’t look at Peter still - it’s not his fault, it’s not Peter’s fault that Aaron died in Miles’ world and is alive in Peter’s. It’s not Peter’s fault that Miles saw this alternate Aaron who is alive and well and _here_ for this dimension’s Miles.

In times like this, he wonders what would Ganke do. Ganke, who doesn’t try to pry about why he keeps on dialing the same number and listening to the same voicemail until he falls unconscious on the bed with no tears staining his pillow. Ganke who just knows not to talk about schoolwork when they’re inside their dorm room, with just the two of them. Ganke, who tells him little by little, the story of his own uncle, a North Korean refugee who didn’t quite make it out from the land he was held to, and Miles listened. They traded stories about their own uncles, and Ganke never once pushed, only held infinite open invitations, arms and shoulders so warm and solid and _here_ that for a solid moment, suspended in their dodgy honey-tinted light bulb and focused solely in the tight grip Ganke bracketed him into, that everything stopped sucking for the duration of the hug and he didn’t go to bed listening to Aaron’s voicemail.

“Why are we here,” he asks Peter, voice hollow. 

“Looking for your friends. I kinda hacked into the system and found his schedule, don’t give me that scandalised look, kid, I want you gone as much as you want to out yourself from here,” Peter parks his car, pulls out the keys and clambers out, long and awkward and bulky with his trench coat.

The climb to the observatory isn’t long, nor is it winding, but he is out of breath at the top, heaving the river stench into his lungs. 

“Why,” breath in and out, “would Ganke be here?” 

“How come you don’t know,” Peter’s voice is far away - he’s a vigilante, he should be _faster_ than an apprentice Spider person. "Kid loves astronomy."

A wave of familiar Korean washes over him and a grown up Ganke blinks over at him, phone to his ear.

“Um, wait,” Other Ganke murmurs into the call. _“I'll call you later,”_ he can recognise that one. Ganke had been trying to drill it into him.

“Uh,” he opens his mouth. And nothing else comes out.

Ganke doesn’t seem the least bit fazed. He pockets his phone, turns quickly to lock the door behind him, and moves to stand in front of Miles, face holding zero expression. 

“Mr Parker,” Ganke nods and half bows to Peter. “And...you look exactly like Miles, but five years younger.”

“Um,” Miles offers up, very helpfully. “I’m -”

“From a different dimension, I’m well aware. Mr Parker, you know I’m busy today,” Ganke looks over his head. It’s weird. It’s so weird. In his world, he and Ganke see eye to eye. But over here in Peter’s freakishly normal dimension, Ganke is taller and older and his hair is longer and in a tiny bun and he wears one of those shirts that look like it could be something Rio would sew for him during Christmas - 

“We just need to send him back,” Peter wheedles. It’s not unreasonable, probably, but Miles has zero knowledge on how to send people back and forth like lightweight parcel on express speed across realities, so he can’t talk. 

He also is supposed to be feeling sad. Seeing Ganke, a variation of Ganke, but Ganke nonetheless, took away all the revisiting the trauma and grief of seeing Aaron that he’s left winded.

He is also distinctly aware that the reason his breath is knocked clean out of his lungs is because the prospect of meeting Ganke - a completely different meeting, but a meeting regardless - is a calming and exhilarating experience. Each and every single time, seeing Ganke is like seeing a completely new side of him and Miles - really should be getting back to his own world and tell that to his Ganke. 

“You have a portal machine. I saw you and Liv tinkering on it,” Peter drawls, a pinkie stuck inside one ear. “Look at him. How long do you want him to loiter around here and be sad for? His parents will be worried about him if he doesn’t check in with them. He needs good attendance to go to university -” 

“I am fully and awfully aware, being a past high school student myself -”

“His friends and family will worry so much about him. Won’t you worry as well if your Miles go missing from the face of the earth?”

Apparently Peter struck a nerve, because the resignation is apparent as Miles’ mutant spider mark as Ganke instructs them to _leave the car, I’m driving._

Oh my god this Ganke drives. Of course he does. He’s an Adult - is all the helpful commentary Miles’ brain provides, because it is in truth a lizard and is actively out to plot for the imminent cause of his demise.

“Can't remember a time where you don't look down at me and call me a mushroom,” Ganke smirks down at him, uneven eyes giving him a run for his money. Not that he has a lot. And why is he noticing eyes now, on Ganke? His friend has nice eyes, sure, but that doesn't mean anything.

“How have you been, Miles?”

Miles, a world away from home, just fresh from two encounters of people he thought he might never see ever again in the span of two hours, is really really _not fine._

He doesn't start bawling. No, Morales suppress their feelings like the masochists they are and cry in their sleep later on when their roommates aren't listening in to check if they've drowned to death in their tears. They are proud and emotionless. Having feelings just complicate a lot of things. 

He doesn't know if this Ganke is aware of how much Miles is and isn't _his_ Miles, but he can tell that no amount of lies will get past him. 

So he settles with the truth. 

“I just want to go home.” 

Ganke scrutinises him, behind glasses that look really good on him and clothes that just scream _Miles._

“Okay,” he declares, rearing back. “Let's go.” 

Miles follows, like an idiot, and then shakes himself to awareness.

“To where?”

Ganke dangles a keychain in front of his eyes, a laminated sticker of a Spiderman mask bright neon and conspicuously standing out.

“To rip a hole in the fabrics holding worlds together and flinging you through it. Keep up, Morales, how will you beat young me in rankings if you are always behind like this?” 

He breaks into a full sweat.

“I'm _plenty better than Lee at everything else, thanks!”_

 

Peter is humming a lot as Miles and Ganke argue on the drive to a New York apartment. This Ganke is spunky and has loud opinions on the diversity of women in the engineering fields and he cares a lot about Asian representation in the media. He will go to the grave with his opinions and Miles is taken aback at how comfortable he is and how comfortable everything is. He has the advocacy skill of a barrister if he choose to embark down the law path.

Peter doesn't stop humming even as they get into the elevator to the penthouse suite.

“Excuse me, can you _stop_?” He hisses to The Spiderman, who should be Responsible and Adult-y and Functional, who had, so far, been anything but those qualities.

“Why should I? I'm not doing anything to ya,” Peter's face is scary and Miles kinda want to zap him with a couple of sparks so that he can be shocked enough to stop.

“Remember how I can shoot electricity when my brain is sick of policing my emotions? Watch out,” he trades back just as lowly, with no trace of malice but all the traces of Aaron in his mannerism. 

Peter shrugs, stretching his arms from behind his back, yawns and goes right into poking at something uncovered under white flat sheets, casually just overlooking the tall concrete jungle of New York with whatever eyes underneath that sheet.

“What’s that,” Miles jerks a thumb at the lump under the sheets. “Old man, stop touching it. What if it breaks?” 

“I think,” is Peter’s muffled response. “You should say that to yourself, Mister I Break Electrical Appliances As I Touch Them.” 

“Rude,” he mutters under his breath. “Ganke? Where are ya?”

“That’s  _hyung_ to you, young man!”  

“Tomato, tomato,” he flutters a wrist. “Is this yours?”

“What,” Ganke emerges, freshly changed into a striped shirt, open at the collarbone, with a turtleneck underneath it. “Why are you staring at me weird?” 

Miles isn’t even going to address that because he knows that is veering into a category that he himself hasn’t considered or need to consider when he has the objective of Leaving.

“Just, you dress differently,” he mutters. “Also, this place yours?”

“Yeah, and yours,” Ganke passes by him, lugging a tool box. “We share it under Aaron's and my mum's name.” 

He trips at the mention of The Name. He can't - not after - he _can't -_

“Miles?” It is a faint faint call. Still the same voice. “Miles, listen to my voice. _Breathe.”_

“Do you,” he’s not staying up for this, drooping like a sad balloon clean out of air, “know uncle Aaron?”

Ganke steadies him, grip tight on his shoulder and waist, eyes hard and searching - exact same eyes as his Ganke, everything the same but older, more layered - skin aging with college and dealing with this Miles of this world. 

“We’re,” Ganke pauses, “close, and we met each other’s families before. I would know him. He’s over to this place a lot. I think he’s coming over to pick me up. Miles, my Miles, is on his way to my mums’ house.” 

“Are we close enough,” he swallows, nudging the lump from his throat far away from his mouth, to utter the words unbidden. “For the me here to know about uncle Eungyeong?” 

A static moment of silence. Then Ganke hoists him up to his feet. 

“Mister Parker? Please don’t destroy my apartment,” he calls to the kitchen, tapping his pockets for something. Locating it, he turns back to Miles, dialling a number.

“Wait, who - who are you callin -”

“Who else?” Ganke lifts a brow. “Your uncle.” 

Miles should’ve seen this coming. He should’ve well seen it arrive, barrelling from a thousand miles away. _Of course. Of course Ganke would realise, even as he gave the bare minimum of information._ Ganke had always been academically _and_ emotionally intelligent. Miles himself too is catching up on that emotional sphere of brain power, but haven’t yet attained the level of sheer genius and non-sequitur mental acrobatics as his roommate does.

Ganke is given the impression that Aaron is no longer with Miles as Eungyeong is not with Ganke, and judging from how fast this older version of his friend had dialled the call, there really is nobody else besides _him_ that Ganke would call. 

“I don’t know how similar you are to my Miles, but,” Ganke smiles, a touch of countless nights spent poring over caring for Miles. “He listened to my voicemail for a month long when I had an internship in Tokyo. I figured, well, you can’t be that much different, same Miles, just different circumstances. And, if your uncle isn’t with you, wouldn’t it be nice to hear his voice this one time before you go back to your world, where you won’t have the memory of his voice with you?”

Miles doesn’t give him the benefit of a response.

“I know I would do a lot to do that one last time with my uncle. Answer or hang up, Morales, I don’t have a lot of credit on that number.” 

Miles stares at the call for longer, harsh bursts of air fissuring from under his ribs. It’s difficult - Jefferson had helped and they had mourned together - but it’s not the same without his uncle. It’s not - everything is different now and Miles _misses him so hard_ that _it hurts to find his breath._

“Gan? You good, man?” Aaron picks up, voice the same, but older, but still _him._

Miles feels the tears dripping onto his cheeks rather than feeling them leave his eyes. 

Ganke had slipped out of the room, the phone on the glass table, on speaker mode. He can’t - he can’t make the words go.

“Hey uncle Aaron,” the voice, the kid in him that grew up by Aaron’s side, the one that falls back to his reliable, comfortable uncle, who seems so tall and big, the pillar of protection against everything terrible and bad with the world.   

A fixed point. He had always been a fixed, unmovable wall, stationed around Miles and fending off the strict regulations Jefferson set up for him, allowing him to have fun, be a kid, let loose.

“Miles? Man, I’ll be seeing you in a while, so why the call, kiddo? You miss your ol’ man Aaron that much, kid?” 

 _Yes._  

He doesn’t bother with keeping his voice even. “Yeah, uncle Aaron, I do. Feels like it’s been forever since we last talked before today.”

“Only a coupla months and you’re already sounding like we’ve been separated forever, Miles. Listen, I’m nearly at Ganke’s, hang up, open the front door, and we can talk more, yeah, MIles?” 

“Uncle, wait, I’m not - I just, don’t walk that fast. Just, wanted to tell you something I never got to. I guess I’ve been too involved in myself to appreciate how much you do and mean for me, so uh, I love you, uncle.” 

All around Aaron, the elevator dings. Then there is no more sound.

“Miles,” and there is that Davis Typical Asshole™ voice peaking from under the drawl Aaron puts out. “That's a copy.”

“I am hanging up,” he threatens, storming over to the table. “Please do not bring up this conversation again. I’m deleting it from my memory. I’ll see you around, uncle.” 

He doesn’t say _Not in my world, ever again._  

“Don’t be a stranger, kiddo,” Aaron laughs. “Hey, you and me, we’re together, on the same boat, you get me, man? We might be apart physically but I’m still here for you, Miles, and that’s never going to change.” 

Miles can feel the tears just running down his cheeks again. He murmurs some half-assed goodbye and turns off the call, hashing out a harsh breath. 

Aaron probably never suspected a thing. Good, it should be that way. 

Miles, while this is in no way the closure that he craves, is lighter. This awful, ugly, menacing grief coalescing inside his lungs, is resolved somewhat, and what had happened, happened. He cannot bring back the dead. Aaron cannot explain to him what had transpired

“Oi, kid!” Peter calls for him. “I think we can ping you back to your world. Run quick, before I get bored and turn it off!” 

“Don’t say that,” Ganke softly admonishes him.

“I’m going to zap you,” he tells Peter, drawing the jacket closer around himself. Wait. His pyjamas. He turns, grabbing the bag from Peter’s feet, toeing off the shoes he was given and flinging them at Peter’s shins.    

Ganke offers him a fist bump - _their thing,_ apparently, in every universe - and he returns, shifting at the sight of a lot of framed photos and polaroids of he and Ganke together. He’s sure this is at least related to the Google Panic that he induced in the one and only Sloppy Once Divorced Spiderman of An Alternate Dimension. He himself would work his head into a frenzy if he even attempt to scratch the surface of that, so he's not going to even _try_ and just. Leave it. Done. It's there, it exists, not his world. 

“Be good to your Ganke, okay?” This Ganke winks at him. 

For a split second, he suddenly understood, deeply, spiritually, emotionally, intellectually, what the internet people wax poetics on and on about the possibilities of other world spanning out there in parallel to their own. To see this reality, to see the potential and the appeal of _staying,_ is finally a feeling that he can store in his bank of temptations, never to be touched with.

For fate and realities are both fraught with human actions and other systems they have no control over, and this world is literally something entirely different and branching from his own, that he would just be a spectator in staying in it. No. He has a family. He has a friend and someone waiting for him at school. He has a city that is dependent on him. 

He has to go home. And this is not home, though it could be, if he tries hard enough.

 _There is a spark in you, Miles. And I can’t wait to see what you can do with it._  

“I hope this Miles is good for you too,” he says, sincere. It’s a strange day, filled with sincerity and meeting people who should not be alive and seeing an alternate reality where things _could have been._

The things that had been weren’t all terrible. He doesn’t regret a whole lot. They all happened for a reason. He is who he is because of the things that had been. 

“Tell your Miles,” he slants a grin over at Peter Benjamin Parker, “that all he needs is a leap of faith.” 

“I taught you all of that and you just insult me -” 

“Peter, my worst teacher ever, keep doing what you’re doing. You’re coping. That’s all that matters. See you around, slobby old man.” 

Peter is indignantly held back by Ganke as the machine cranks up and rips a new one in the fabric of time-space continuum, Miles stepping in and readies himself to jump off, back to his world. 

As he takes that leap, he looks back as the front door opens, and Aaron steps in. 

Feeling himself disintegrate to be assemble back into his world, he only throws a hand forward, quirks an eyebrow and puts on a shameless Davis Patented™ _Hey._

He doesn’t get to hear Aaron’s baffled guffaw as he is sucked away from that world and back into his own.

 

Ganke throws an entire robotics tome at his face, in surprise, when he drops from thin air and onto the nice rug Ganke’s mum Sihyeon sent in for them to laze around on. 

 _“You absolute moron!”_ Ganke whales on him. _“I thought you died!”_

 _“I’m so sorry!”_ He screams back. _“Your funky little robot sent me to another dimension!”_

Ganke stops in his continuous lobbing of objects and stares at him owlishly, fist still raised threateningly. 

“It did? Where'd you go? Who did you meet?” 

 _“That’s your priority?”_  

“Oh,” Ganke also notes. “Your dad came in to check in on you. I told him you’re having a mental break day. He and your mum left, like, spray paint cans for you? Also he told me that he’s going to conveniently skip out on the subway tonight if you need it, and I don’t know what that means, but that’s all he told me.” 

Miles starts picking up the books and stashes them on top of each other. Considers his options. Sees the gym bag, Aaron’s, half open and filled with his spray paint cans, from his time and the time after.

“Hey Ganke,” he turns his head, “wanna have a playdate in the subway?”     

“If we get caught, I’m wearing a lab coat around the dorm for the next five weeks,” Ganke threatens, but it’s empty, and doesn’t even blink as he throws open a window and peers below. 

“Yeah, well,” he pulls down his mask, mouth uncovered. “Where’s your sense of fun?” 

Ganke still stares at him, eyes flat behind his glasses. 

“Do you trust me?” Miles extends out a hand, eyes blinking once, twice behind his mask.

Ganke doesn’t deem that appropriate to reply to, and simply places a hand in his. It fits, nicely. He thinks they can do something more about it.

But for now, they’re young, they’re swinging across rooftops over Brooklyn, and the night is infinite.

**Author's Note:**

> older ganke can i get a yeehaw
> 
> pLease find me on social media and interact and scream about gankemiles with me: [twitter](https://twitter.com/tacobell_com), [curious cat](https://curiouscat.me/jenny_benny) and [tumblr](https://www.tumblr.com/blog/tacomakers-central)


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